A Life Without You

by Shari Low

  ‘Mine,’ he said. ‘Lizzy.’

  ‘Ah, so how is the romance of the year going?’

  ‘It’s going,’ he said, a little offhand.

  ‘Oooooh, do I detect trouble in paradise?’

  He sighed. ‘Not trouble. Just maybe a difference in perception. We just kind of fell into dating, and I had a bit of time to think about it while I was away and I reckon I should probably call it a day. She already knows that I’m only here again for a few months, and that I’ll be heading back to Australia and my old life, so no point in starting anything up here, is there?’

  ‘Probably not.” I admitted, experiencing a pang of regret at the reminder that he would be leaving. It had been great getting to know him and there would be a real hole in my life when he’d gone. I didn’t want to think about that right now though, not when we had crucial things like his love-life to sort out. ‘Just break it to her gently and please make sure she doesn’t show up here.’ I added.

  ‘I hardly think she’ll bother. She’s a great girl and we were never exclusive – she was dating a couple of other guys too.’

  I put my hands over my ears. ‘No, no, no, no – don’t tell me this. I don’t get the whole modern dating exclusive-non-exclusive-thing. It terrifies the life out of me. Pete and I met when we were fourteen and back then you snogged a guy behind the school shed and that was it. Exclusive. I’m never going to be ready for the dating world. I’m going to be single forever and end up living alone, still working here, a dried up old husk surrounded by Heidi Klum bikinis.’ I was joking, but there was definitely a truth in there. Dating. The very thought of it made me want to lock the door and stay on the couch watching Cold Feet until the end of time.

  ‘Aw, Jen, it won’t happen like that,’ his words oozed sympathy.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yeah. Some other brand of bikini will be trendy by then.’

  I’d walked right into it and his cheeky smile was irresistible. I was still laughing when the door beeped outside to signal the first customer of the day.

  ‘Glad we had this chat. You might want to work on your counselling skills though.’ I said, trying to replace amusement with sarcasm but not quite succeeding.

  I was almost past him when he put out his hand and caught mine.

  ‘I’m kidding,’ he said, ‘and you know it. You’re going to find a great guy, one that deserves you and makes you happier than you ever were with that dickhead.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I know it,’ he said.

  Something in the way he said it, with such surety and conviction, made me believe him.

  Chapter 28

  Val

  I’d come to hate the dance of avoidance Don and I did when we were going to bed. I’d go up first, get ready, climb under the sheets. Then I’d hear him coming up after me, going into the bathroom, then he’d come round the other side, under the covers, and he’d spoon my back. I suppose that was something. Until we’d talked after Dee’s birthday dinner, there was a chasm between us that neither could breach. At least now there was a bit of contact. At least physically. But emotionally and intimately, we’d never been more disconnected.

  I kept hearing that old Pink Floyd song that I used to love without really relating to the lyrics. ‘Wish You Were Here’, it was called and there was a line in it… Two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl. That was us. Don and I. He didn’t know what to do with the love he used to feel for Dee and I couldn’t love him when I was so consumed with unadulterated anger. Two lost souls.

  Since I opened that letter, my rage had reached an all-time high and it was all I could do to contain it. It had been incredibly difficult not to race right round to his mother’s house, to rage and rant. I’d even got as far as my front door, but I’d stopped myself just in time. I had to. I couldn’t go round there in the state I was in. Much as I wanted to face him right now, to make him pay, to punish him, I wanted to be calm, prepared, to be thinking straight when I faced him.

  The new trial was three months away and sometimes I wondered if the pain inside me would kill me by then. Or maybe it would be the strain of trying to keep it hidden that would get me. Josie was making it her mission to keep me busy. Book Club. Lunches. Popping over most days for a cuppa, always looking at me for signs that I was going to have another meltdown. I assured her I wasn’t. I was fine, I said. Getting through it. Staying strong.

  That was my story and I was going to stick to it no matter what. This pain was mine and I wasn’t for sharing.

  I felt Don’s body curve into my back and realised that I welcomed it now.

  I heard him murmur, ‘I love you,’ and it jolted me. For thirty-eight years we’d been married and every night those words were the last thing I heard, until Dee died and he fell silent.

  Tonight was the first night since then that he’d said it aloud, exactly the way he did before, and I didn’t know whether to be grateful or devastated. Did this mean he was getting over losing her? Getting back to normal? Didn’t he know there was no normal anymore?

  He must have felt my body tense. ‘I’m going to start saying that to you again, Val, because I do, love – no matter what’s happened.’

  I heard the catch in his voice and realised he wasn’t getting over her.

  He wasn’t a talker, never one for vocalising his feelings. In all these months, we’d talked plenty about Dee, but never about how we felt about losing her. I knew he was hurting, but what did it say about him that he was trying to reach me? He was a bigger person than me. This was his way of taking small steps back to me. Touching at night. Telling me he loved me.

  ‘I know,’ I said, hating myself because I wasn’t giving anything back. I couldn’t. There was nothing to give.

  After a few minutes I heard his breathing change and felt his arms relax and he slipped into sleep. For an hour or so, I watched the red digital numbers on the white alarm clock on my bedside table change and I knew I couldn’t stay here.

  I hadn’t left during the night for weeks, doping myself up with sleeping pills, knowing that I wouldn’t drive if I’d taken them. It was the only way, because if I’d gone out there, I knew where I’d go and I was scared of what I’d do when I got there.

  Now Mark was back, though, I didn’t want him to see me taking them or being groggy in the morning. Instead, I lay here at night, tossing and turning, fighting the urge to get up. Until I couldn’t.

  Don let go of me altogether now and rolled on his back and I waited for what I knew would come next. Yep, there it was. Deep, guttural snores. Quiet at first, then louder as he found his rhythm. I felt the rage grow inside me and I knew it was either get up and go, or suffocate him as he slept. I’d had enough mourning this year so I got up and silently left the room.

  As I passed the closed door of Mark’s bedroom, I was telling myself I’d just go downstairs for a cuppa, but I knew I was lying. I took a pair of thick black leggings off the pulley that hung in the utility room, and from the folded pile to my left, picked up a long, thick, grey, roll-neck Arran jumper that didn’t need ironing and slipped it on, then pulled on my black leather boots that were lying by the back door. I was out the door in less time than it took to boil a kettle, my footsteps not making a sound as I walked down the path, past my neighbours’ houses, until I reached the car park, then closed the car door gently so I wouldn’t wake anyone.

  The feeling of freedom when I pulled away was like shedding a skin of stress. I drove on autopilot, deliberately not thinking, not planning, because that way I didn’t have to admit where I was going and stop myself. But of course I knew.

  Twenty minutes later, I passed the shop she worked in, but kept going, around the corner, I didn’t want to see the mother – I wanted to see him. I pulled into a space in the street across from their house, and turned the engine off. Every window was in darkness, as I suppose it would be at 3 a.m., and that made me even angrier. Was he in there? Sleeping? Playing on some daft PlayStation or Xbox? Was his moth
er in bed, able to sleep despite knowing what an evil bastard her son was? Or was she round the corner at work, laughing with colleagues, pitying the unfortunates that came to the late night café, in denial about the fact that as that killer’s mother, she was the most unfortunate of all?

  I stayed for maybe half an hour, then turned the ignition. Despite my earlier decision not to go there, five minutes later I drew into an empty space right at the door of the supermarket.

  The doors made a swooshing sound when I entered, and every nerve in my body was screaming at me to turn left, go to the café and see if she was there. But not yet.

  I turned right, took a basket, started walking, up the first aisle. Fruit and Veg. Turn. Crisps and sodas. Turn. Breads and cakes. Turn. And so on, up and down every aisle, drawing it out because although the anticipation was killing me, the reality of getting there and seeing her was even worse. Christ, I was a mess. But at least I knew it. That had to count for something.

  The bloke at the till didn’t even look up as he rang it through and I was glad. The chatty ones were the worst.

  A sirloin steak, onion rings, thick cut chips, a peppercorn sauce, a banoffi pie, custard.

  He added on 5p for the bag I was packing it in and I paid with my card, then started walking, slowly, an invisible force pushing me, while another tried to stop me taking my next step.

  I turned in to the deserted café and my heart sank. It wasn’t her behind the counter. All I could see was the back of a head, but the hair was short, grey, almost cropped to the scalp. A man. How could I be filled with both relief and disappointment at the same time?

  I should go home, but my hands were shaking and I didn’t trust myself to drive on this much adrenalin. One tea. Ten minutes. Just long enough to settle myself.

  Only when I reached the counter did the person turn around and I froze. It was her. The same person, yet not. Gone was the dark red bob, and in its place was hair that was not much longer than stubble around the sides and back, a bit longer on top. Same face though. Same person.

  Our eyes met and I looked for a hint of recognition. None.

  ‘What can I get you?’ she asked, a forced smile.

  ‘Tea,’ someone said. There was no-one else here so it must have been me.

  ‘It’s just in front of you, there,’ she said.

  Of course it was. I knew that from last time and from every other supermarket café I’d ever been in. With shaking hands I lifted a cup, then a teapot and teabag. I opened the silver lid, put the bag inside, then placed it on the chrome shelf of the machine, pressed a button, and watched as the water came out, desperate to focus on something other than the woman across the counter who had now moved a couple of feet along to the till.

  ‘One pound fifty please.’

  I took a fiver out of my purse and handed it over. Only then did I have a chance to look at her and I saw that she had black circles under her eyes, sunken cheeks, and her hands shook worse than mine. If she was anyone else on the face of this earth, my heart would go out to her, yet I felt no pity. Not a shred.

  She handed back my change and this time our hands touched and I had to steel myself not to recoil. Those hands had touched her son, held him, fed him, probably soothed him when he was a boy and he couldn’t sleep at night. Did she wrap them around him when she went to collect him from the prison, when he’d got out on bail after killing my girl? Did they hand over money to him so he could go buy a couple of cans and a few more pills to get high? I hated her.

  ‘Are you OK?’ It took me a moment to realise she was talking to me and that I’d been staring at her the whole time. Bitch, feigning concern.

  ‘Yes. Long night,’ I replied as if that explained or excused it.

  ‘Do you want me to take that to a table for you?’ she asked, gesturing to the cup that was rattling against the teapot because my hands were trembling. The thought of her touching it made me want to vomit.

  ‘No,’ I said, not caring if she thought I was the rudest cow she’d ever met. I thought she was the worst mother and her spawn should be exterminated. Rude didn’t even come close.

  I wanted to stare at her, scream at her, tell her exactly what I thought about her and her thug son. I wanted to reach over and grab what hair she had left and pull her head down and bang it against the counter until she was unconscious. Rage. Pure seething rage. But I didn’t do any of that because I’d never struck another human being in my life and she wasn’t going to be the first. I hated her, but I hated her son more and I wanted to face him, tell him what he’d done, scratch my fingers down each side of his face until he bled.

  She half shrugged and I turned away, took a seat at a table in the corner. I took two sips of my tea, and realised I couldn’t drink it. I got up, picked up my bag and walked out, not giving a damn if she was looking at me, or thinking I’d lost the plot.

  My time would come. But not yet.

  Chapter 29

  Jen

  We’d arranged to meet again in the café across the road from his office. May as well give the waiting staff a bit more entertainment.

  I arrived an hour early, because I couldn’t concentrate on anything else anyway. I wanted to look serene and composed when he arrived, and I wanted to see who he left the office with. I’m not proud.

  ‘Hello again,’ said the same waitress who’d been there last time. No shock that she remembered me after the scene I’d caused.

  ‘Hi. Can I have a cappuccino please?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said with a smile, then retreated, probably to inform the rest of the staff that I was back and they should tune in for the second episode of my life drama.

  I’d barely sat down when, to my surprise, I saw him come out of his building, dressed in his running gear. That bit wasn’t the surprise. He often went for a run straight from work, because he said that if he waited until he got home, he’d never go back out again. It was too far for him to jog all the way from the office to Weirbank, so he’d run for forty-five minutes, then nip back to work for a quick shower before driving home. His company had a gym and changing rooms on the ground floor, so he had all the facilities he needed.

  No, the surprise was that he had his arm around Arya, all five feet eight inches of gorgeousness. Actually that wasn’t it either. The real surprise came when he stopped and kissed her, full on, in the middle of the street. Pete hated public displays of affection. He thought they were naff and embarrassing. I once tried to kiss him at the top of the Eiffel Tower and he jolted his head up so quickly his chin caught my tooth with maximum force and I spent the next two days taking ibuprofen for the pain.

  This time, as I watched him tenderly place his hands on each side of her face, I waited for the stab through my heart, but weirdly, none came. Four months ago, I’d have charged across there and confronted him. Now I was just happy that I knew.

  ‘Ouch,’ came the low voice, almost a whisper from a few feet away. I turned to see the waitress, standing still, holding my coffee, her stare going in the same direction mine had been, taking in Pete and his snogfest.

  ‘Yup, ouch,’ I told her, with a conspiratory grimace.

  ‘Ex?’ she asked, her tone friendly, with an edge of sympathy.

  ‘That obvious?’

  ‘Not this time, but it was the last time. You were like a stuntwoman tearing across that road.’

  That made me laugh. ‘Not my finest moment,’ I replied ruefully.

  And that could have been it. End of conversation. Case closed. If she hadn’t gone on, ‘Yeah, well, he’s not worth it. Trust me. Goes through them like water.’

  For a minute I thought I’d misheard her but she hadn’t finished yet.

  ‘There was you, then there’s that one over there, then there was another one that he used to meet in here some lunchtimes. Of course, it could all have been innocent, but I doubt it. Enjoy your coffee.’

  Enjoy my coffee? She’d just told me there was a very real possibility my ex-boyfriend was a serial womaniser a
nd now I was to enjoy my coffee?

  Chin on floor, I turned back to Pete, who was now holding Arya’s hand as she said something to him, then he laughed and leaned over to kiss her again, before she went in one direction and he took off running in the other. I’ve never prayed so hard for rain.

  What A Creep. What a complete arse. I realised right then that there was a part of me that had still been hoping he’d come back, that had been waiting for the call or for him to arrive at my door, our door, and beg me for forgiveness. I also realised that the reason I wanted to tell him I was selling the house face to face was because I was hoping it would jolt him to his senses. Of course, I knew it was crazy. He had already sent over the papers to buy him out. Somehow though that didn’t seem as final as actually selling the place, moving on to something that didn’t have a piece of us in it.

  I spent the next forty five minutes alternating between feeling like a fool and hating him, until I saw him reappear around the corner and run back towards the building. I mean, sure he was gorgeous, and fit, and all those things, but really he was just a bloke in running tights with… he turned to go into the building… sweat marks on his arse. Somewhere in my head I could hear Dee screaming with giggles at that one and I knew if she was right here she’d be telling me to woman up (she always said the man-version was sexist) and get him chucked. She’d always thought he had a tendency to be a wee bit too full of himself anyway.

  For the first time in the six months since he’d walked out, I knew with absolute certainty that if he asked me to take him back, I’d refuse. Wow. Empowerment, fuelled by the almighty shot of caffeine that was in the cappuccino, flooded through me.

  No more.

  Done.

  What had I ever loved about him? I struggled to pinpoint what made us tick. We just motored along. There was no grand passion. No big fights. We’d been together so long, we just fitted, and a big part of what made our lives great was our group, Dee, Luke, Val, Don, Josie… we made the most of life together and in hindsight I wondered if that disguised the fact that there was something missing. Well, he was certainly making up for that now.